Called Otherland
From old green hills
Pray kept or creeping
Or keeping still
Oh so the worry
More so the ought
Tender and hurried
Also the knot
Away on skyline
Up close unwaiving
Flounced in the grey
Fraught from saying
Better to die me
Bitter the notion
Across Otherland
To answer oceans

I make heart songs;
kinda right/ maybe wrongs;
sudden dreams to sleep upon

I make colors speak,
sorta blue/ sorta greens;
canvas you can picture me

I make living books,
little sturdy/wordy shook;
a universe that won’t but should

I make deeper dive,
overhanded/about knee-high;
wading in I wonder why

I make no more,
something close/other or;
venture near to see what for

I make here now,
gentle whisper/wishing how;
Sown in secret hand to plow

I make volition work,
veiled intention/inches spurred; hidden for the listener

I make simple scary, unassuming/heavy air;
worry never soothed the wary

I make making do,
make on me/making you;
make until the makings through

Giving is tender, though taking turns embers
It keeps the fires burning
Plan for the weather, but guessing is better
Maybe that’s the lesson I’m learning

The perfect taste of simple things,
rising in the heart
long before the mind begins its destructive ordering.
If we should feel small,
then in smallness let us be the greatest insignificance;
and by chance if ever we become a singularity in ourselves
surely we will expand and become the universe.

The shallow fear of simple things,
catching off guard all who wander on paths
stained by longing or painted stones and curiosity.
As though it were our fault
that fault cannot be levied against any one man’s chest and held there… austere, obscure and unyielding.

If only he could clench the guilt for us,
we might gather around and uphold his visage
and proclaim that all blame is forgotten
and now each heart could skip and run and fall and fly
without that weight of despair stringing down our hopeful souls.

The gentle nudge of simple things,
reminding each distraction that real answers and their questions
are always out beyond the solutions we settle into.
And here is the lull in our reason,
the cliff-side fence-post where we stop
to behold the expanse of sighted creation
knowing just beyond leaping is freedom.
We are not stars nor dust
but something shared in between.

The sated pleasure of simple things,
which end and begin out of order
then fade and appear in us just the same.